Sleep Mode
by Witch Bomb
Summary: The westernmost area of the Vistarion Palace was a mysterious place. And Wahl was curious.


**Author's Note: This is a birthday present for a friend (Ladyfire-Azula) which I decided to upload here as well. :)  
**

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A low whirring sound filled the silence. The otherwise-dark room was illuminated only by the light of a screen – the sole piece of furniture in this tiny space. A lone man sat cross-legged against the wall, staring at the door.

Being a robot, Wahl didn't need any sleep; despite this, he would shut down at night since there wasn't much else to do. But tonight, he had decided to stay awake for a while… and he felt the closest thing to boredom that a robot could feel.

Everyone else in the palace would undoubtedly be asleep right now; it was two in the morning, and most humans didn't like the early hours of the day. Moving around was bound to disturb someone.

Maybe he should just shut down until his built-in alarm woke him up as usual. But tonight, he didn't want to: he wanted to leave his tiny room and explore the palace. It was cramped in here, and there was nothing to do. Not to mention that there were still areas in the colossal Vistarion Palace that he hadn't even seen – places only the emperor himself had laid eyes upon.

Wahl stood up, finally reaching a decision.

He had never cared much about his comrades and their human habits anyway.

The soles of his boots clicked against the faded tiles. A human would have been unable to see in the dark hallways without a torch of some sort – but luckily for Wahl, he possessed a night vision function.

The westernmost part of the palace was a mysterious place: cobwebs hung everywhere, dust coating every surface. It seemed that even the cleaners avoided this area. Probably something to do with that rumour that had been going around.

Nobody knew how the rumour had begun or who had started it. All they knew was that, according to the common belief, something horrifying lurked in this area… something that even the emperor himself couldn't face.

Wahl had to admit that, on occasion, he wondered if the rumour could be true. After all, His Majesty had told the cleaners to leave this place be. What horror was it that the rumour spoke of? He, a machine, couldn't experience fear, but even he had been told to stay away from the western corner of the palace.

But no, Wahl needed to see what exactly made this place so awful… even if it was one of those things he could simply never un-see.

The clock struck three in the morning, and yet still Wahl had encountered nothing "horrifying". He peered around the next corner: he'd been checking closets and the tiny rooms he'd found everywhere, but his quest had been fruitless.

His searching eyes located yet another door. Smirking to himself, he wrenched it open to find it dark and empty, just like all the others. But that didn't mean it would lack loose floorboards or more hidden compartments.

It wasn't difficult to find the loose board: it gave way beneath his foot the moment he entered. Stepping back and kneeling, he forced it upwards… and nearly leapt back at what he saw beneath.

For the first time since he began his hunt, he had found something.

Upon poking the white surface, Wahl found that it had a soft, pillow-like texture. Snapping the boards around it, he managed to free it from beneath the wood, lifting it up to take a good look. Printed on the side that had been facing downward was a large image of… Brandish?

…Who owned this? And what on earth was it for?

"Scan," he mumbled, activating his scanner. It took a few minutes, but eventually, the scanner reported to him exactly what this object was.

He burst into a fit of manic laughter. It didn't help that, upon closer inspection, the "body pillow" was covered in short blonde hairs; he didn't even need his scanner to know that it belonged to Dimaria.

Still cackling, he stuffed it back into the hole beneath the floorboards and began searching around for more hidden panels. Unfortunately, he found nothing else, and decided to move on to the next door.

It wasn't long before he happened upon the next one, entering the tiny room just as he had before. This time, he found no loose floorboards – instead, his searching fingers found a hidden compartment in the wall.

The contents of the compartment appeared to be boring at first – just stacks and stacks of paper. He began wondering if, just as the last one had been Dimaria's property, this one belonged to Invel – but that was soon ruled out as he glanced over the first bundle of stapled-together parchment.

Neinhart's name was printed very clearly on the first page in black ink.

Wahl replaced the papers and stepped out of the tiny room, shutting the door silently behind him. As well-written as Neinhart's stories were, he didn't care to read about human mating habits – he wouldn't touch the subject with a ten-foot pole. As he moved onward to the next hidden door, he vaguely wondered if his findings were the "horrors" that the rumours referred to.

At around six in the morning – a safe half-hour before Invel, usually the earliest to rise, would wake up – Wahl returned to his room. Tucked under his arms were the fruits of his search: the body pillow and the "fanfiction", along with a photo album he hadn't opened yet and a rather disturbing collection of voodoo dolls.

He crept back into his room and tossed the objects onto the floor. Sitting down cross-legged as he usually did, Wahl observed the objects, deciding to take a closer look at the voodoo dolls first. They were small and white, with string hair and tiny stitched-on eyes. Close observation of the one he had picked up showed that it had long red strings for hair, almost like Irene. Upon inspection, he found that the other ten voodoo dolls were based on the rest of the Spriggans… except Bloodman. Well, that made it obvious who the dolls belonged to. It was probably how he took revenge when the others got on his nerves.

He poked the Wahl doll experimentally, but felt nothing. Wahl guess that he wasn't affected due to being a robot.

Shrugging and tossing the dolls aside, he picked up the photo album. According to the hastily scribbled writing on the inside of the cover, it belonged to Irene, Invel, and Jacob, and was "never to be opened". The next few pages were sheets of paper with messages like "seriously, don't open it" and "I'm warning you" scrawled across them.

Ah, here were the photos. Wahl peered closely at a shot of Ajeel holding a permanent marker, grinning and flushed in the face from alcohol, leaning over an unconscious Dimaria with a mustache sloppily drawn above her lips. The one beneath it pictured Brandish, giggling drunkenly, lying fully-clothed in the bathtub.

Wahl flipped through the pages, occasionally stopping to look more closely at a random picture. A blurry shot of the top half of Neinhart's wide-eyed face, Serena trying to push into the picture from behind him; Larcade, wearing a tablecloth as a (somewhat oversized) cape, stumbling off the edge of a banquet table; a grinning Irene pouring a bottle of beer over Bloodman, who didn't seem too pleased about it. All of the photos had the too-bright quality of photos taken by Wahl's built-in camera – and yet he couldn't recall any of this happening, let alone taking any pictures. Had someone hacked his memory and deleted them?

Maybe he would find out at the meeting later that morning…

Red eyes narrowed, darting across the meeting table. "Wahl's late."

"That's weird." Ajeel leaned back in his seat and rested his feet on the table. "Doesn't he usually set a built-in alarm for meetings or something?"

"Yes." Invel frowned. "Nevertheless, I'm sure he'll be here at any moment."

"Hey, guys!" As if on cue, the double doors swung open, and Wahl stepped in, clutching a heap of objects. "Sorry I'm late. Decided to bring some stuff with me." He took a seat and tossed the items onto the table.

Silence.

Disgust briefly flashed across Invel's face, but he quickly managed to regain his usual blank expression. Jacob, horrified, mumbled something about "indecency". Irene clamped a hand to her mouth to hide her amused smirk.

A few seats away from Wahl, Dimaria forced a smile. "Wahl, where did you find those?"

"Westernmost area of the palace. Last night."

Several of the others leapt from their seats. "You went into the west area?!"

"Yeah. There's no monster or whatever that whole rumour was about." Wahl shrugged. "All I found was these. Dimaria, this pillow belongs to you, right?"

"Yes." She snatched the body pillow from Wahl, glaring at him. "And I didn't give you permission to touch my things."

Brandish stared at her. "Mari, why do you… have that…?"

"None of your business."

"Where did you get it?"

"None of your business."

"How–?"  
"None of your business."

Wahl picked up a voodoo doll in each hand. "What about these creepy dolls?"

"Those are mine," Bloodman answered. "Would thou give them back?"

"No, wait. Don't." Larcade stood up. "Bloodman, have you been using voodoo on us?"

"…No."

Larcade's usual calm smile didn't change, but it was clearly hiding annoyance. "Bloodman…"

Bloodman sighed. "Only when thou annoyeth me."

"Wahl, don't give those back to him." Larcade sat back down.

Wahl glanced between Larcade and the irritated Bloodman. "Okay."

Neinhart smiled, a sheen of sweat forming on his forehead. "That's enough, Wahl. No need to show us the rest of it. We'll just carry on with the meeting…"

"Aw, but that's boring, Neinhart." Wahl grinned and picked up the bundles of paper. "You wrote some pretty good fanfictions."

"…You read those?" Neinhart tried and failed to keep his composure; his face flushed bright red.

"Only some of them. I don't like reading about humans' mating habits." Wahl smirked.

Neinhart sank down in his seat, face burning. All heads in the room had turned toward him, some amused, some horrified, some simply unimpressed.

After Wahl finally managed to stop laughing, he spoke. "Oh, right, and I found this. It looks like a bunch of photos taken by my camera, but I don't remember any of them."

" _Wahl, did you open that?!_ " Invel, Irene, and Jacob all shouted at once.

"Yeah. Duh."

"Ooh. Can I see?" Serena moved his seat closer to Wahl's.

"Sure, take a look."

"No." Invel strode toward them and snatched the photo album. "This thing was supposed to remain hidden where nobody would ever find it. Especially not you, Wahl."

"Huh?" Wahl blinked. "Why me?"

"Because after you took those photos, you tried to use them as blackm–"

Irene's sentence was cut off as Jacob clamped a hand over her mouth. "Don't give him any ideas!"

"When did I take those photos, though?"

"A few months ago," Invel answered, firmly shutting the album. "We had a party to celebrate the anniversary of the country of Alvarez, and everyone but you got a bit… carried away."

"We got hammered," Ajeel said bluntly.

"You, being a robot, couldn't get drunk," Invel explained. "So you spent the night taking pictures for blackmail instead."

"Seriously? Wow, I was a genius a few months ago." Wahl grinned.

Irene sighed. "Anyway, we're going to have to find a new hiding spot for that. Or just burn it."

"Let's burn it!" Serena leapt to his feet and struck a pose.

"Why didn't we just burn it in the first place?" Brandish asked. Her answer was a series of shrugs from the others.

August glanced around at them. "I shall do the honours, I suppose, since I'm the only one who can use fire magic."

"Are you not forgetting someone?" Serena raised his hand.

August quickly corrected himself. "The only _responsible_ one who can use fire magic."

"Uh, _rude._ I'm extremely responsible for my age, thank you very much."

An awkward silence followed.

"No," Invel said, "you're really not."

Serena sighed and slid back down into his seat.

"And I'm going to speak to His Majesty later about finding some way to keep Wahl out of the west wing. And the rest of you, too." Invel cleared his throat. "Anyway. Dimaria, Neinhart, would you care to remove those from the meeting room? Once you return, we will continue the meeting as usual. I will keep this photo album with me until we have an opportunity to burn it."

"Can I take one last look at it?" Wahl asked.

"No." Invel glared at him.

"Please?"

"No."

"…Fine." Wahl folded his arms and slouched in his seat, glowering at Invel.

Invel turned back toward the others, waiting for Dimaria and Neinhart to return.

The moment Invel wasn't paying attention to the album, Wahl's hand darted out and snatched it from before him. Immediately, he turned and sped away, ignoring Invel's angry shouts from behind him. Grinning, he peered back over his shoulder to find Invel, Irene, and Jacob following him. A few of the others were stumbling out of their seats to give chase as well.

Clutching the photo album, he dashed through the hallways of the palace, cackling.

A minute or so later, Zeref was nearly knocked over by the angry Spriggans stampeding past him. Wahl was in the front, cackling and waving some sort of book in the air above his head.

Calmly, the emperor stood up and dusted himself off. He was used to this by now – after all, the Spriggans got up to some very strange things.

Sometimes, they just didn't need a context.


End file.
